Te Wahipounamu, New Zealand

Wilderness Within World Heritage: Te Wahipounamu, New Zealand Les Molloy Murray Reedy Abstract—The Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Area, 2.6 million passing them to the management of the Department of hectares (6,424,600 acres) of mountains, glaciers, forests, and fiords, Conservation, which already managed the primarily moun- contains New Zealand’s main wilderness resource. The Department tainous national parks. Soon after, in December 1991, the of Conservation’s comprehensive Visitor Strategy has been used to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Orga- manage visitors to the widely differing sites within the World nization (UNESCO)—without hesitation—designated this Heritage Area system. Most management effort is focused on the 2.6 million hectare wilderness (an extraordinary 10 percent increasing number of visitors who require access and facilities in the of the total area of New Zealand) as the “Te Wahipounamu frontcountry, and the large group of discerning backcountry users (South-West NZ) World Heritage Area.” who use the “Great Walks.” Four wilderness areas, making up 10 The name “Te Wahipounamu” is an ancient Maori term for percent of the World Heritage Area, are strictly managed for the whole area, meaning “The Place of the Greenstone.” wilderness recreation, and there are proposals to designate two Pounamu, or “greenstone,”is a nephrite found in isolated additional areas for wilderness users.Unresolved management is- lenses along the path of the great Alpine Fault; pounamu is sues are: the need for more marine conservation, the need for better highly prized for its beauty and utility by the indigenous control of introduced animal pests, and the disruption of natural people, the Maori, who traveled into the interior of the quiet by tourist flights. wilderness to gather this “taonga” (treasure). Te Wahipounamu has four National Parks—Fiordland, Mount Aspiring, Mount Cook, and Westland—as its corner- stones. These mountainous limbs are skirted by the lowland The Southwest of New Zealand’s South Island is one of the rainforests of Waitutu and South Westland (fig. 1). great wildernesses of the Southern Hemisphere. It is a remote, unoccupied landscape, both forbidding and beauti- ful. It contains New Zealand’s most outstanding wild landscapes—the fiords, the Southern Alps, the great glaciers, and the turbulent rivers descending to the vast temperate rainforests of the West Coast, and the wide open spaces of the Eastern tussock grasslands and glacial lakes in the rainshadow of the Alps. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, bitter resource controver- sies raged throughout the Southwest, with wilderness advo- cates opposing: • Raising of Lake Manapouri in Fiordland National Park for hydroelectricity. • Mining of asbestos in the Red Hills ultramafic area. • Formation of a 120 km tourist road between Haast and Milford Sound. • Nonsustainable logging of the magnificent Rimu and Kahikatea Forests of the river terraces and moraines of South Westland. After 2 decades of intense resource controversy, the New Zealand government unequivocally opted for conservation by reserving the lowland rainforests of South Westland, In: Watson, Alan E.; Aplet, Greg H.; Hendee, John C., comps. 2000. Personal, societal, and ecological values of wilderness: Sixth World Wilder- ness Congress proceedings on research, management, and allocation, volume II; 1998 October 24–29; Bangalore, India. Proc. RMRS-P-14. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. Les Molloy, Heritage Works, P.O. Box 183, Wellington, New Zealand, e-mail: [email protected]. Murray Reedy, West Coast Conservancy, De- partment of Conservation, Private Bag 701, Hokitika, New Zealand, e-mail: [email protected]. Figure 1—National Parks within Te Wahipounamu South-West New Zealand World Heritage Area. 162 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-14. 2000 The main tourist attractions of the South Island lie within the World Heritage Area: • Milford Sound and the Milford Track • Lake Te Anau and the Kepler Track • The Routeburn Track and Mount Aspiring • Mount Cook (Aoraki) and the Tasman Glacier • The Franz Josef and the Fox Glaciers A measure of the integrity and “outstanding universal value” of the South-West is the recognition by UNESCO that it meets all four criteria for World Heritage status by: I…containing major features of earth’s geological history, especially the uplift of mountains along a plate boundary and the development of glacial and marine terrace land forms; II…exhibiting significant on-going evolution of alpine herbfield, forest and wetland habitats since the last glacia- tion; III…having many areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance; and IV…containing some of the most important habitats for the conservation of the biodiversity of ancient Gondwana. Visitors Within the World Heritage _______________________ Te Wahipounamu is an extremely robust landscape, defy- ing past human attempts at settlement. The only residents are temporary, mainly associated with tourism (regulated by the Department of Conservation) or fishing in the fiords. There are two main road corridors into and through the Les Molloy wilderness—the Haast Highway and the Milford Highway, each of them a narrow ribbon through the mountain passes, Figure 2—Lake Nevernever lies in the heart of the mountainous Pembroke Wilderness Area in Fiordland valleys, and forested coastal plain, each vulnerable to earth- National Park. quake, rockfall, avalanche, and flooding in this most dy- namic of landscapes. A network of 10 visitor centres and many interpreted nature walks are dispersed along these “Heritage Highway” corridors (or “aranui”), catering to visitors who want to learn more about the biodiversity and to the wilderness areas for recreational or commercial pur- history of the landscape without having to venture far from poses is not allowed, although the Department of Conserva- the road (Molloy 1992). tion periodically sanctions aerial hunting of wild introduced animals, which are serious pests because of their detrimen- tal impacts on the native flora and fauna. Wilderness Areas The wilderness areas are well buffered by a natural landscape that does have a degree of visitor facilities and At the other extreme, there are four wilderness areas (wild services. Overall, Te Wahipounamu provides recreational areas managed strictly in terms of the New Zealand Wilder- and educational experiences for a wide range of visitors. The ness Policy) within the World Heritage site: way in which an acceptable level of visitor use has been • Hooker-Landsborough (41,000 ha) planned for, within such a natural World Heritage Area of • Olivine (80,000 ha) high biodiversity and wilderness conservation value, is • Pembroke (18,000 ha) (fig. 2) worth explaining more fully. • Glaisnock (125,000 ha) These areas are depicted in figure 3 in relation to the main Planning Framework for Wilderness visitor centers and Heritage Highways. The four areas are dispersed throughout the World Heritage Area and, to- in Te Wahipounamu _____________ gether, add up to 10 percent of the total area. As wilderness The planning framework for the management of the wil- areas, they are managed as places where visitors enter “on derness resource of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage nature’s terms.” There are no visitor facilities such as roads, Area is illustrated in figure 4. It spans national, regional, huts, and bridges; there are not even any tracks. Air access and local communities of interest and levels of USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-14. 2000 163 Legislation World Heritage Area Visitor Strategy Four conservation management strategies Management plans for: Wilderness policy Figure 4—Framework for wilderness management. Figure 3—Conservation Visitor Centres and access to Te Wahipounamu South-West New Zealand World Heritage Area. Wilderness-based visitors Facilities-based visitors Wilderness Developed decisionmaking. There are four main planning entities: areas visitor sites legislation, visitor strategy, conservation management strategies, and management plans. Remoteness- Backcountry Backcountry Day visitors Overnighters Short-stop Legislation seekers adventurers comfort-seekers travelers In New Zealand, there is no specific legislation for World Heritage Area management. The New Zealand conservation V i s i t o r g r o u p s legislative provisions are well developed so that Te Wahipounamu, like other protected areas, is conserved through the provisions of the Conservation Act, National Figure 5—Recreational opportunities for visitor groups. Parks Act, and Reserves Act. Each of these pieces of legislation empowers the designation of Wilderness Areas. • Short-stop travelers Visitor Strategy • Overnighters • Day visitors The Department of Conservation manages all visitor sites • Backcountry comfort-seekers within the World Heritage Area in terms of its Visitor • Backcountry adventurers Strategy (Department of Conservation 1996). The strategy • Remoteness-seekers divides all visitors into seven different visitor groups (fig. 5). The Department is committed to providing quality recre- The seventh category, “thrill-seekers,” such as white wa- ational opportunities, and where appropriate, it also pro- ter rafting and parapenting, may not take place within vides facilities within Te Wahipounamu for six of these wilderness areas unless the activity complies with the strict visitor groups: conditions of the wilderness policy. 164 USDA Forest Service Proceedings

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